Back to 2nd AD A VR on-line experience with Virtual Rome Project

The Virtual Rome Project, commissioned by Seat Yellow Pages and the Italian Chamber of Commerce, has developed a VR webGIS application, with front-end and back-end on line solutions, for the interpretation, reconstruction and 3d exploration of archaeological and potential past landscapes of Rome. The purpose is the creation of a three-dimensional open source environment, embedded in a web-browser. The web application has two components: a front end that let the final user interactively explore the reconstructed space and a back end (still in development) that helps researchers to consistently build up the data structures needed to the complex activity of landscape reconstruction. At present the archaeological and ancient landscape of Rome has been reconstructed with variable resolution and accuracy (generally w 10-100 Mt, selected areas near via Flaminia, via Appia and Imperial Fora, with a resolution of 20 cm). Sites, monuments and archaeological areas are connected with their context and are reconstructed in accordance with real and hypothetical topographies both for the present day and for the past. We will describe the process of contents and software development as well as the methodological approach to ancient landscape reconstruction. The paper discusses also some problematic aspects that the "Virtual Rome" on line application had to face, both from archaeological and ICT points of view: reliability of reconstructed past landscape; the reconstruction as open and scientific process; large territory dataset on line management (32 GB of high resolution aerial images); different coordinate systems and data resolutions integration; 3d models complexity and dimension (texture and geometry) integration and efficient exploration; vegetation integration; continuous interaction for inter and intra-site browsing and plug-in integration in the browsers most commonly used. We present solutions to further develop the back-end VR webGIS builder, in order to allow a continuous modification of the landscape and the integration of different projects, to realize a 3d cooperative environment and a reference point for virtual communities.